Eight Diagram Pole Fighter

Synopsis

The Yangs are betrayed by a government official conspiring with the Mongols. All of the Yang family males except the 4th, 5th, and 6th brothers are killed. Fu Sheng loses his mind after the death of his family, while the other brother, takes refuge in a temple. Liu's superb martial arts skill, impress the temple's senior monks. He learns that his sister has been captured by the conspirators.

EIGHT DIAGRAM POLE FIGHTER is the kind of movie that is less than 100 minutes long, but has the epic arc of something twice as long. It's the kind of movie that is so overflowing with melodrama and exaggerated expressions of human emotion that it causes some audiences to laugh. Lau Kar Leung's fight choreography is, I'm sure, praised elsewhere by people more succinct and knowledgeable than me, but what I found striking on this most recent rewatch is how well everything else is handled too.

Shaw Brothers productions at their worst can feel like filmed stage plays. Lau does everything in his power to stage the dramatic action with nearly as much dynamism and graphic strength as the action…

I don't have kids but if I did I like to think that my version of a bedtime story would just be me recounting and acting out the plot to Eight Diagram Pole Fighter. "Once upon a time there were seven brothers..."

Who am I kidding, I'd probably just force the kids to watch this when they're way too young.

Pole beats blade really says it all. As I delve further into the work of this master director I find his anti violent stance ever more fascinating. Lau Kar-Leung is never doing these martial arts as exercises, because they look cool or because he wants to stretch his directorial skills. It all has a meaning, and strangely enough it's tied in with pacifism.

The first two-thirds of this are solid but slightly scattered fun, the action leaping around between various protagonists as the surviving remnants of a betrayed family try to deal with a world where they're no longer the force they used to be. I had a good time watching the two battle-scarred brothers as they fell in and out of various deadly situations, and when their younger sister joins the action things take a step up.

Nothing prepared me for the absolutely astonishing last half-hour though, in which one of the brothers uses the newly-acquired fighting skills (that he has obtained by becoming a monk for about ten minutes) to raise absolute hell, culminating in what might be THE greatest fight…

Probably Lau Kar-leung's darkest film, bringing an end to the Shaw Brothers era with a bleak, brutal distillation of his most fundamental subject, the impulse to worldly revenge versus the pious imperative for withdrawal in the face of injustice. A palace, an inn, a temple, a cabin in the woods, an abstract, unearthly battlefield: the scene of a nihilist apocalypse. Unable to prevent himself from taking bloody vengeance, the hero walks away. Not into the sunset, but towards the audience and into the world.

First Shaw brothers production I’ve seen, I think. Highly staged with incredible sets and a balletic quality to the whole thing. The story felt a little too stilted for me to really be invested in that angle, but holy shit the fight choreography is insane. Tons of verticality, weapons incorporated, and an incredible amount of people involved in each fight. It’s a marvel how they were able to arrange these highly complex fights and still manage to shoot and edit them into something comprehensible and thrilling.

As to be expected though I had to suffer through a dreadful dub job so I assume I would have rated this half a star higher if my ears weren’t bleeding half the time.

I usually have trouble engaging emotionally with kung fu, but this movie is boss as hell.

The fight scenes rarely lapse into non sequitur. They either advance the story or are a reflection of some internal conflict -- and they vary between brutal, funny, and even poignant. PLUS the 35mm print was gorgeous.

A dude uses his own scalp to rip the teeth out of someone's mouth, and it makes you cheer. This is a great movie.

I'm jumping ahead with this review because of an opportunity to see this as part of a 35mm Shaw Brothers series at my local repertory cinema. This is my 2nd Shaw Brothers film, and definitely the bloodier of the two. The defanging sequence was a little stomach churning for me, but the film was entertaining, and I'll never look at bamboo chopsticks the same way again. Between this and the 36th Chamber of Shaolin, I realize there is much of Chinese history that I have no idea of, specifically anything to do with the Tartars.

Another great Shaw and Gordon Liu collaboration with a stunning final fight sequence during which it's revealed that monks like to engage in forced dentistry while fighting. Highly recommended for kung-fu fantatics. Gordon Liu is a badass.

By far the most visually striking and cinematically impressive kung fu movie I’ve seen to date. Many framings and camera movements reminded me of American filmmakers I adore as I’m sure Liu Chia-liang must have too. The film has some serious narrative depth, honing in on humanistic reactions of characters to a family betrayal. The audience even sees one son portray PTSD quite convincingly. And the choreography and creativity of the fight sequences stands above what I’ve seen thus far.

The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter may end up being my gold standard for kung fu.

A far more colorful and visceral take on Shaolin starring Gordon Liu. Some consider it the final classic in the Shaw Brothers catalog while others might find the finale's dentistry a bit gross. Either way, THE EIGHT DIAGRAM POLE FIGHTER remains peerless in bang gung fu (Chinese bo staff martial arts). Co-star Alexander Fu Sheng died tragically in a car crash during production explaining why his character is noticeably absent after a time.